


Outbreak

by Zipp0Flare



Series: A Hunter and a Smoker Walk into a Bar [3]
Category: Left 4 Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Final part to Infection and Surviving, Found Family, Gen, Highly recommend to read the first two otherwise this will make no sense, Hurt/Comfort, Kobe's a little shit, Left 4 Dead Original Characters - Freeform, Todd is a bad influence, Todd is still mayor of Swearsville Tennessee, Will add more character tags as I progress, hurt/not much comfort, no beta we die like men, typical Left 4 Dead violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zipp0Flare/pseuds/Zipp0Flare
Summary: The world is slowly going to hell, or at least a large portion of the East Coast is as the Green Flu quickly spreads throughout the United States. Todd is just a guy from Tennessee trying to find his way in the world, only to be thrust into literal hell on Earth and stuck with a kid who's almost more trouble than he's worth. Kobe's just a twelve-year old that lost everything he cared about and only has the goal of finding his older sister at this point, holding onto some hope that she's still alive. The two of them try to do their best to survive during these times and figure out where to go from here, running into a few surprises along the way.
Series: A Hunter and a Smoker Walk into a Bar [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666543
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	1. Progress and Deep Seated Fear

**Author's Note:**

> This took me a lot longer to get out than I'm proud of. It doesn't help that I spent a solid week working on a completely different first chapter, only to learn the reason why it was taking so long was because I absolutely DESPISED it and ended up trashing it. I don't think that particular chapter will see the light of day, though I may make small references to it in future chapters, keep what little salvageable bits there are. 
> 
> No real warnings here, minus the typical Todd having a filthy mouth and some referenced violence. It is highly advised to read the first two works in the series, otherwise this won't make much, if any sense.

When Todd had fallen asleep twenty-four hours ago, he had believed that he would wake up to just another day with no real excitement coming to his life, just like always. Maybe he may have started looking for a job, see who would hire him without being a bigoted asshole. Maybe he would have gone looking online for any place cheaper than his current apartment to keep in mind when his lease ran up in less than a month. He had gotten used to living in utter shit conditions, something a little crapier wouldn't be a big deal so long as it kept his savings lasting just a little bit longer.

Instead, he had woken up to screaming nearby, infected apartment neighbors that acted like rabid animals, and committed his first, second, third, and onward murders out of self defense. He wasn't even sure if he would call it 'murder', since those people were, essentially, no longer people. That was what he kept telling himself to make the knot in his stomach go away, to help him feel even a tiny bit better about the situation. He wouldn't have seen himself booking it out of town as quickly as he could, or even driving for hours on end for some sign of salvation and that there was at least one place that wasn't going to shit. 

The most surprising thing that Todd found himself doing was taking in some little kid who seemed a little more trouble than he was worth... but was completely alone in the world at this point. Had anyone told him twenty-four hours ago that any of this shit would be happening to him, he would have laughed in their face and called them crazy. Yet here he was in some unknown town, sitting on the ground with his back against the siding of some house and watching as the aforementioned kid tried to calm himself down and process that his entire life had basically fallen apart within a matter of hours. 

"You feelin' up to gettin' up and gettin' back to what we were doin'?" Todd asked Kobe, his tone quiet and not showing the panic he was feeling from staying in one place for too long. He wasn't going to let the kid in on just how unsettled he was about the situation, nor how confused he was about what had happened not ten minutes ago. He had seen his first special infected, a Smoker, Kobe's half-brother of all goddamn people, but the thing didn't act anything like he had read from articles he had found online. Retrospectively, it did grab a hold of Todd and caused a crushing pain when he was chasing after Kobe, but the moment the kid turned around and showed that he wasn't running from Todd and that the two of them were actually a duo, the crushing feeling lifted and the infected took off. _'Almost as if it was protectin' the kid..._

Todd shook his head at the ridiculous thought; he had run into enough infected at this point to know that these things were rabid and didn't care who they were munching on. The first infected that he had run into in his apartment had proved that when they had killed one of their own. It still made him wonder what was making that Smoker tick, why it was acting so weird, and why it had just... left them alone without any further incident or attempt to crush at least one of them with that crazy tongue.

"Are you even listening to me?" Kobe's tone was annoyed, and Todd realized that he had spaced out while the kid had been speaking to him and had been attempting to get his attention for a while now if his annoyed face was anything to go by. "Sorry, just... just thinkin' about the shit that's goin' on. Tryin' to figure out how to deal with this." Todd's answer seemed to appease Kobe, even if the kid still looked a little peeved. "I was sayin'," There he goes with that cheeky, annoying attempt at mimicking Todd's speech patterns, "that I'm ready to go back to the house. To pick up where we left off and see if we can find anything." 

Despite his resolve, Kobe still looked hesitant, as if he wasn't sure of his words. Todd couldn't blame him; the kid had just learned that one of his family members had for sure been infected and was walking around as some mutated thing, and there was also the possibility that his own father was also one of those things as well. "I was about to say, I hope you know where the fuck we're at. Because I lost track of what house was which a while ago." Todd made a face as Kobe let out a small laugh, apparently amused that he, a little kid, knew more than an adult. Even if it was understandable that Todd would have no idea what was where in this unfamiliar town, he still reveled in the small victory. 

"Yeah, we're not too far away, actually. I know this place like the back of my hand." The smug look on his face was a tad bit annoying, but it was also a bit of a joke with the melted chocolate that was smeared around Kobe's mouth. Todd wasn't going to even mention it and see how long it took for the kid to realize it was even there. "Then lead the way. But don't go runnin' off again. That shit could get one, or even both of us, killed." Though Todd did his best to keep his tone even, Kobe could tell there was quite a bit of irritation in those words as his face fell into a more sheepish look. "Yeah, I get it. I'm sorry I did that..."

That was something Todd wasn't expecting. Something told him that the kid wasn't really one for apologizing when he did something wrong, unless it was thrust in his face. Still, he didn't let his surprise show and just gave a small smirk and nod as he got to his feet. "Be sure to remember that shit next time, then. Buddy system and that shit... Do they still teach that in school?"

"Jeez, you're old." Todd almost took offense, almost, but remembered that he had that same mindset toward anyone over the age of twenty back when he was Kobe's age. So he couldn't exactly blame the kid for the little jab. "Sure, whatever you say." Kobe, surprisingly, made no further comment or reaction to those words, so Todd considered it to be a small victory. Instead, he stood up as well and began to do as instructed. "You're goin' toward the sidewalk." Todd's words weren't mean to sound suspicious and somewhat judgmental, but the fact that they had just seen the kid's half-brother wander off in that direction, along with Kobe's earlier reckless actions, Todd couldn't help but be a little suspicious of what the kid was planning.

Evidently Kobe caught on as well and did his best to stop the older man from thinking he was doing something inherently stupid once more. "It's easier to get around on the sidewalk. If we go behind the houses, everything just looks the same and it gets confusing really quick. I mean, it's dark out, a lot of stuff looks the same." Todd had to give him that and was temporarily appeased. He continued to stay silent and, within a few minutes, Kobe had delivered the two of them back to his house (he could no longer call it a home, even in his own head, after everything that had happened).

Todd wasn't going to admit that he was relieved when he saw that his crummy truck was still in one piece. Part of him had worried that they would come to it smashed apart, a sign that the Tank had returned. Maybe it was miles away by now, it was hard to tell just how long ago it had come smashing through parts of the house in front of them. He continued to tell himself these things if only to keep from having panic overwhelm him once more. He wasn't prone to this kind of reaction, but after everything he had been through and everything he could experience, it was difficult to fault him for it. 

Kobe took off running around the side of the house, but at Todd's exclamation of disapproval (with a few expletives thrown in for good measure), Kobe remembered what he had just been told and managed to slow down to a walking pace one more. "Good. Thanks for not bein' an annoyin' little shit again and taking off."

"I mean... like you said, buddy system?" Kobe made a face, either because he thought the saying was dumb or just the idea in general, it was hard to tell. "But we can't be going really slow, 'kay? I don't wanna miss Ana because your butt wants to be a snail." A noise of offense came from Todd's throat but he didn't say anything further; it wasn't like Kobe was paying any further attention anyway. "Just shut up and let's get moving." 

It was easy to find the footprints once more - though the sight of the indentations that the Tank had made was still extremely unsettling - but Kobe didn't seem at all bothered by them. Todd didn't even mention it, since his concerns always seemed to fall on deaf ears anyway and the kid was already showing signs that he no longer saw Todd as a scary badass and instead as a try hard dork. 

It didn't take long for the smaller footprints to fade to the point where neither of them could see any further sign of where Anabelle may have taken off too. There had been a moment where it looked like the girl had stumbled but continue to keep running afterward, but there wasn't any sign that the girl had even been there after a certain point. A little further ahead Todd could see where the ground was even more torn up from the Tank's rampage and dread filled his stomach. Had it reached her and there was a large scuffle? If so, though, where was the body? 

Todd was distracted from his thoughts when Kobe let out a frustrated noise, apparently not having negative thoughts on what had happened to his sister, but instead aggravated that there was no further sign of where she had gone. "Ana! Where are you!?" Panic flooded through Todd's system and he ran over to slap a hand over Kobe's mouth to keep him from continuing to yell. "Are ya stupid?! You don't go yellin' like that during a goddamn zombie apocalypse! That's how people get killed." Todd hissed, only to make a noise of disgust when he felt the kid lick his hand. 

"You're disgustin'. You are the definition of nasty gremlin child." He muttered as he wiped his hand off on his pants. "Don't cover my mouth next time and I won't like your hand. It tasted disgusting by the way." Kobe said, making a disgruntled face. "Haha, funny joke. Little shit..." Todd was pulled away from his irritation when he felt Kobe tug on his jacket and looked down at the kid to see him pointing at a place on the ground. "I think I found something." 

At first Todd wasn't sure what the kid was talking about or how he had even managed to see anything. It was currently dark as shit and the streetlights were almost too far away to reflect much light on the ground Kobe was currently intently staring at. Despite the sight limitations, Todd was able to finally notice that part of the grass was a darker color and, upon brushing his fingers across the area, Todd realized it was blood when his fingers came up bloody and tinged red. Though it wasn't a large amount, the fact that all of it hadn't yet dried on the grass showed that it was a very, very recent injury, most likely made within the past hour. 

"Whoever got injured, this happened pretty recently." Todd voiced his earlier thoughts. Upon peering closer, there was a sign that something had been dragged from that spot with grooves being made in the ground. The look on Kobe's face showed that he too had the same thought and he took off again, following the trail. "Dammit! Do you not fuckin' listen to me!?" Unlike earlier, Todd's words didn't slow Kobe down and he instead had to run after the kid to make sure he didn't get himself hurt, especially when he rounded the corner of one of the houses and was out of sight. Todd caught up to Kobe quickly once he came around the corner as well, mostly because the kid had stopped running and was now staring at a very much dead infected that was slumped against the side of the house.

While Kobe stayed silent, trying to process just what he was seeing, Todd zeroed in on the very noticeable claw marks across the infected's face. They weren't a normal, defensive wound though, and instead deep gouges that cut to the point where part of the skull was visible. _'That explains the blood we found...'_ The cause of death seemed to be asphyxiation if the barely bruised skin around the neck was any tell. "How did this happen?" Though Kobe knew that there was no way Todd would know the exact events that had happened without being there, he had actually come to trust the older man's judgement about certain events. Todd knew a helluva lot more than he did during this entire fiasco after all.

"Well, I don't know who the fuck would waste time with stranglin' a zombie, and these marks on the face..." Todd's eyes widened as he thought back to the first article he had read about the Green Flu earlier that morning, about the various special infected listed as well as what they could do. "Oh fuck..." 

"What? What?" Kobe pestered, wanting to get some sort of answer and not be left in the dark. "We're ignorin' any cryin' we hear." Was Todd's only response, which only caused more confusion. "But, what if someone needs-"

"We're. Ignornin'. Any. Cryin'." Todd emphasized, making it extremely clear that he wasn't budging on this mindset. "There's a special infected that seems to lure people in by cryin' or some shit. And these things... In my opinion, they're about on par with Tanks. If ya leave 'em be, and just move along without pesterin' them, they'll leave you alone. But from what I've read, they're extremely volatile and will go off on anyone who's dumb enough to disturb them. One guy watched a Witch kill both people they were travlin' with with just a single swipe."

"Still, something that cries? Doesn't seem scary to me." Todd shot a scathing look at Kobe, but the kid wasn't looking in his direction and didn't notice. "Ya ever learned about angler fish in school?"

"The creepy things with the light that are really deep, deep down?" Kobe questioned and was met with a nod. "What about them?"

"Replace the light with cryin', and there ya go." Kobe seemed to consider his words, but part of him still felt like it was dumb to be afraid of a crying infected. What kind of zombie cried anyway? 

While Kobe continued to have his thoughts on how dumb this so-called Witch seemed to be, Todd was putting together what pieces of this entire puzzle he could find. There were still parts that he wasn't getting, some inkling in the back of his mind that was sreaming at him to abort the mission, this is getting dangerous. The fact that Anabelle's footprints stopped where they had, and an infected person had been injured by a Witch near that area was putting knots in his stomach at the possibility of what dark, dangerous things had happened to Kobe's older sister. 

Knowing the kid had already been through a lot for one night though and not wanting to upset him further, Todd kept his thoughts to himself. It wouldn't do any good anyway if he turned out wrong in the end and worried the kid for nothing. So he stayed silent and waited for Kobe to make his next decision. Todd was fine with taking the lead, and would have much preferred to do so to get the hell out of dodge, but he left the ball in Kobe's court to make a decision on if he wanted to keep up with this probable lost cause of finding his older sister. 

It didn't take long for Kobe to get back up and proceed back to where they had found the blood and then further to where the Tank had upturned more ground. "What now, kid?" There was silence for a moment before Kobe did what Todd had greatly hoped he wouldn't do; he started to follow the Tank's tracks.

"Kid, what the fuck? Why? Why are you doing this? Did you forget what that thing is capable of?!" Todd was beginning to wonder if the anxiety he was feeling that caused his stomach to churn was now going to be a permanent thing while he was with this kid. Survey was saying yes. 

"Well, I've never seen them in action, just what they apparently do. That's what you say, anyway." Kobe sassed. "But if it was chasing Ana, then if we follow these we may find her." Sure, for a twelve-year-old kid with barely any knowledge about the hell he was currently located in, this was a fairly reasonable thought. For someone a tad bit more experienced, though, those were the words of someone had a death wish and just didn't know it yet. 

"Or, we could just run smack dab into a pissed off Tank. I think that's more reasonable since that's what we're followin'." Todd shot back. "The ground shakes when they're nearby, yeah?" With how Kobe's attitude seemed to be during the entire time Todd knew him (which, arguably, hadn't been very long), he didn't even expect the kid to have been listening to him when Todd was mentioning what tiny details he knew about the large special infected. "Yeah? I mean, yeah, it does." He corrected after sounding like he was questioning his own words at first. In reality, he just didn't see where the kid was going from that.

"Then if we feel the ground shake we can hide. Otherwise, we're in the clear." In hindsight, it was a strategy -if it could even be called that - that made sense, but it was still treading dangerous waters. Still, Todd begrudgingly agreed, knowing that even if he said 'no' the kid would still continue on without him with how hellbent he was on being unknowingly suicidal. 

As they continued to follow the large indentations that were left in the ground, Todd couldn't help but wonder what had happened during this time. Had Anabelle been chased and decided to turn around? It would make sense with the upturned ground they had found earlier if the Tank had to basically turn on the spot to keep chasing her. Where was she even thinking of going, though? Todd glanced at the houses they passed, looking for any sign that someone was located inside. Had she taken shelter in one of these? Tried to hide from the Tank? 

Todd was so dangerously distracted in his thoughts and musings that he accidentally walked right into Kobe, who was currently frozen right in front of him. "What the..." Todd's words died in his throat as he realized just why the kid had stopped dead in his tracks. The ground was trembling beneath them. And it was only getting worse.


	2. The Nightmare Continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took me a while to get out because I wrote three different versions before settling on this one. I mostly just wanted to keep the chapter going but kept running into dead-ends with the previous versions and just being overall unhappy with it until this final version. I'm hoping next chapter won't take so long to get out or be such a difficult little butt.

"Move, move, we have to move!" Todd practically chanted when the shaking only grew more and more powerful, almost as if the ground was threatening to break apart beneath their feet. There was a loud, inhuman roaring coming from up ahead that only grew louder, a sign that the Tank was close and it was coming even closer. "Where?!" Kobe questioned. Despite his earlier nonchalance about Tanks earlier, his face now showed actual fear toward just how big and dangerous this thing could be if it was effecting the area around them so badly without even being in view.

Todd's head darted around, searching for something to be able to do to keep the both of them safe, and zero-ed in on a nearby house. Grabbing hold of Kobe's hand, he pulled the boy with him toward the house and reached for the door handle, hoping, praying, that the person living there would be dumb enough to keep their door unlocked. Luck was not on their side when the handle didn't even budge and Todd had to keep from letting out a loud curse, not wanting to draw even further attention to the two of them.

The roaring was almost deafening at this point, the creature making it very known that it was pissed. What it was pissed at, Todd had no idea, but he had no plans to make himself and Kobe the new targets of the thing's anger. There were two other closeby houses, though the closest was in the direction the Tank seemed to be. If he doubled back, there was less chance of the Tank spotting them, but if that door was locked as well, the two of them were basically screwed. If they ran toward the Tank, though, there was a possibility that they would basically run right into it at the rate the thing was progressing in their direction.

Kobe made the decision for them when he wrenched his hand from Todd's grasp and doubled back in the direction that they came from, away from the Tank. The kid's fear was finally getting to him, and he was bound determined not to run into this thing that Todd had been speaking of with such fear. He had found it a little ridiculous at first, but now that seeing and having to face the thing was now a very real possibility, he didn't want anything to do with the monster.

Todd gave chase after Kobe but stayed silent as he did so. He could feel his pulse pounding underneath his skin, could feel the adrenaline flooding through his body and forcing him to just keep running. His fight for flight instinct was very real, and at this point it was screaming for him to get the hell out of there. Kobe reached the door first with Todd getting there just seconds later. Luck was back on their side, though, as the door was already partially open. Even though the chance of there being infected in the house was very real, the two of them barged in anyway and nearly slammed the door shut behind them. 

They were met by darkness once the door was closed, broken only by a small sliver of light that peeked through the curtains. Todd let out a sigh of relief that they had gotten out of sight, but he quickly grew alarmed once more when he saw the light that came into the house increase as Kobe drew the curtains a few inches to the side to take a look outside. "The hell are you doin'?!"

"Shhhh! I'm still keeping them closed, I just want to take a look outside." There was that strangled noise again as Todd once more questioned if this kid was worth the stress he was notorious for causing. "Ana and I used to do this all the time and neither mom or dad ever saw us. I know what I'm doing." Todd still didn't feel relieved at Kobe's words, and swore that the kid would be going down first if his actions gave them away. He could feel his heart hammering more and more inside of his chest as the roaring grew louder and the ground was shaking to the point where it was nearly unbearable. 

Kobe let out a gasp of shock, and Todd knew that the Tank was within sight. Despite his earlier complaints toward the kid, there was a morbid sense of curiosity taking over Todd and found him moving to another window to take his own look outside while still keeping the curtains as closed as he could.

The stories did not do this thing justice. Sure, Todd had managed to make his own personal image of the Tank in his head, but it still wasn't enough to prepare him for the sheer enormity of the thing. The size alone was insane, not to mention the amount of muscle that made up the horribly deformed arms. The normal sized legs were almost comical and Todd nearly found himself laughing out of hysteria. Any noise died in his throat when the Tank came in contact with a car that had been parked on the street. A single swing of one of its meaty arms was enough to send the vehicle careening several meters into the air and into the side of a nearby house, collapsing the wall it came in contact with while also crushing the part of the car that the fist had come in contact with.

The roaring seemed to subside momentarily after the action, as if taking its rage out on something was enough to quell the beast just a little bit, but it still continued to trample down the street in the direction that Todd and Kobe had been walking from. The fact that it didn't go toward the house they were currently hiding in was enough of a sign that it hadn't any idea that they had taken residence in the building and that their curiosity hadn't given the two of them away.

Still, it wasn't until after the thing was out of sight and they could no longer feel the ground move that Todd allowed himself to let out a sigh of relief. He turned his back to the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor and waiting for his heart rate to even back out before he looked back toward Kobe. He was surprised to see the kid was still staring out the window, completely silent. It may have been a trick of the light, but the kid looked incredibly pale. "See why I was so worried about those things?" Todd asked with a bit of a hollow laugh, only to stare at Kobe in confusion when the kid looked toward him. Instead of the fear that Todd was expecting to see on the kid's face, it instead showed horror. 

"Hey, it's alright. It didn't see us, it left, we're-"

"That was my dad." That stopped the rest of Todd's words from leaving his throat. Sure, he had hypothesized that the Tank that had busted through Kobe's house may have been Kobe's father, but it was one thing to make theories and another for them to be confirmed entirely. "Are you sure? It was a little hard to make out many details..."

"Those were the pants he was wearing when I ran away, and the Tank had a tattoo of the cross on its back. That was something dad got during 'his wilder times', before he got super uptight about everything. There was other stuff that I recognized too... but those were the main things." 

Todd was silent. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? He was originally secretly pleased to get Kobe on the same wavelength he had been on, the only good thing to come from the Tank's sudden appearance, but now he was starting to wonder if it was worth it. "Like I said back at your place; I already had a feelin' that the Tank that attacked had been your dad... But I'm sure that doesn't make ya feel any better." When Kobe shook his head 'no' Todd continued, "Exactly. I dunno what you want me ta say, Kid. I'm shit at, well, this kinda shit."

"I know you are because you keep telling me that." Todd didn't know what to say in retaliation to the kid's bluntness, and was silenced even further when he saw the small look of amusement on Kobe's face despite his words. "Which is why I'm happy that you at least try. You keep saying that this whole thing is messed up, and I have to remember that you've been through this more than I have and that you know a lot more than I do about this whole situation.

"My dad wasn't a great person to begin with. He tried to preach and all sorts of stuff to Ana and me, but I knew he was a really angry person. Mal's mom always got real quiet whenever dad was mentioned, and when mom started telling him to shut up about this whole thing being a 'test from god'...." Kobe trailed off as he looked back toward the window. Todd stayed silent, knowing that the kid was still trying to get stuff out of his system. "It was scary to see him like that, all out of control and able to do a lot of damage. But I'm not sad about it. He finally looks like how he acts." Todd couldn't help but let a laugh slip out at that, catching himself a little too late, but was relieved to see that Kobe didn't seem to take offense.

"I guess it was a fittin' thing for him. So, it isn't messin' ya up that he turned into that?" Todd asked, wanting to be sure they were on the same wavelength. "Not really. I'm mostly just scared that there's nothing holding him back now. Like his anger finally took over." Kobe jolted slightly when he felt a hand on his head; he hadn't noticed Todd approach him but settled down when he realized what was going on. "So long as you're not gonna fall apart on me or some shit." 

"Nah. You're already enough of a wreck without me adding to it." Kobe managed a smile at the offended look shot his way. "Yer a pain, y'know that? A big, big pain." Despite the humor in both of their words, it was an obvious coping mechanism at this point, a comfort that the two of them allowed for one another. 

"So... what do we do now?" Todd gave Kobe a questioning look and the kid clarified, "I don't know what way we're supposed to go now... I want to find Ana, but I don't want to run into dad like that again. I don't even know if Ana's even around anymore. Dad was angry to begin with when I ran away, and now he's... a Tank, and super angry."

Todd could tell that Kobe was steps away from tearing himself apart, from blaming himself for everything that happened, and stepped in before things could devolve that far. "There wasn't anythin' you could do, Kobe. Ya got out, you survived. If you had stayed behind, who knows what may have happened to ya? Bein' there wouldn't have changed anythin', trust me. And who knows? Maybe the reason the Tank was so pissed was because she got away?" Todd didn't like throwing false hope out there, he had a sinking feeling something bad had happened to Kobe's sister based on what they had found so far, but he wasn't going to add to the problems the kid was already having. 

"We'll take things one step at a time, alright? Let's check out this house, see if there's anythin' here that might need to be taken out." _'The fact that no one has come to see what all that noise was about shows that either the people livin' here are heavy-ass sleepers, or there aren't any people in here that aren't uninfected.'_

"We're not going back out?" Kobe asked, so used to Todd's method of go, go, go. "It's gettin' late, and I'm tired as shit. I'm sure you're not all that full of energy yourself. You've been through a lot tonight." Now that he had mentioned it, Kobe was starting to feel a little drained after all of the events of the past few hours. "I mean, I guess." Todd shook his head at the kid's shrug and nonchalance, knowing that the both of them needed to settle down. 

"We'll need to search the house first, make sure there's nothin' in here that might decide to munch on us while we're out, maybe even pile shit in front of the door to keep normal infected out. It'll do shit for the Tank, but so long as nothin' points it in our direction we should be good." Since they could no longer feel or hear any sign of the Tank's presence, Todd felt around for the room's light switch and turned on the lights. So far there were no signs of any sort of struggle and the house looked relatively normal. Now that adrenaline was starting to settle down, though, and Todd was able to focus on more than just hiding and staying safe, he was beginning to notice the strong scent of copper somewhere in the house.

"Somethin' may have happened in here. You still have my pipe, right?" Kobe tapped Todd's side with the weapon as a response. "Keep it ready, there might be somethin' in here. Stay behind me, though." With those instructions the two of them proceeded into the next room. Turning on the light still yielded nothing out of the ordinary, but the scent was beginning to grow stronger to the point where even Kobe was noticing it.

It was when they reached the third room that they found out where the smell was coming from. Kobe let out a yell of surprise at the sight, and even Todd was caught off guard; slumped against the wall were two previously infected people, both torn apart to the point of being barely recognizable as people. The claw marks were startlingly similar to the marks found on the infected that the two of them had found outside earlier, a sign that whatever had injured that infected was also the cause of damage to these two as well.

"What... what happened?" Todd was wondering if it was worth trying to shield Kobe from the sight, or if it was pointless at this point; he was opting for the second option as the boy had been staring at the two for a little too long by the time the thought had even come to him. Kobe's earlier reaction was mostly from surprise, and though he looked a little pale he didn't seem to be too bothered by it. "You, uh... sure you're okay with this shit?"

"It's gross.. and messed up... But Mal was into horror movies, so I saw a little more than I should have. Besides, this is the new normal, right?"

"I wouldn't really say that. This is the first time I've seen this kinda damage, and I'm relatively sure this was caused by another infected." _'Though why they would attack one of their own I wouldn't know...'_ Todd thought to himself, not sure what to make of things. "They won't be botherin' us any though, that's for sure. And I don't think the thing that did this is still around." When Kobe shot him a look of 'what makes you so sure of that?', Todd elaborated, "I'm not one hundred percent sure of this, but unless there's another thing out there that I don't know about that has crazy-ass claws, this was caused by a Witch."

"The crying thing, right?" Todd nodded, "Yeah, and you don't hear any cryin', do ya?" Kobe shook his head 'no', not having noticed any sounds out of the ordinary. "Then she's not here anymore. Must've killed these two then took off. Apparently after a Witch has killed whatever pissed her off, she then runs off for whatever reason." Todd explained, already knowing that Kobe was going to ask anyway. "How do you know all of this stuff? You said you've never come across any of these things before."

"Internet's your friend if you're able to get a hold of it. Someone named River from New York basically made a whole essay about the shit they ran into. I'll try to find it later after we get some sleep, let ya read over it so you know about the shit that's been givin' me anxiety." Todd promised. "Why not now?"

"Because you need sleep. I'm sure it'll still be there in a few hours, alright? Now, let's clear out the rest of this house and find a safe place to lay down for the night."


	3. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of an intermission chapter before things pick back up again. But yay bonding? Even if it's thanks to some angst.

It took over an hour, but eventually Todd and Kobe had managed to comb the rest of the house, barricade any doors or windows that could cause problems for them in the middle of the night, and settle down to sleep. There hadn't been any other infected in the house aside from the two that they had found earlier and the bedroom that they had found housed two separate beds, making sleeping arrangements a lot less of a hassle than they could have been.

Kobe had basically fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, obviously having been through quite a lot the past several hours and the nights events finally taking their toll on him. Todd, on the other hand, found himself staring up at the ceiling above, unable to sleep. Despite how early he had been forced to wake up that morning and the late hour he finally managed to find someplace to settle down, his mind refused to settle down enough to let sleep take over.

There were too many 'what ifs' racing through his mind; what if something finds its way in, what if they missed something during their search, what if the Tank came back and chose this house to break into for whatever reason. What if, what if, what if. Todd made a strangled noise of frustration, burying his face into one of the pillows to further muffle the sound. He just wanted to sleep and forget that the world had gone to shit for a few hours. Just wanted to let his mind relax and hope for no nightmares to surface during the night hours. He already knew that the two of them had gotten extremely lucky with this house and would most likely have a lot harder time staying safe in the future. 

Despite all of this, though, his brain just refused to quiet down and give him some peace. Instead it continued to question, to try and make sense of everything, to do something productive that wouldn't leave him wanting to just wake up and go back to his shitty job like none of this had happened. 

When a solid hour had passed with no sign of him getting some sleep, Todd sat up, legs crossed, and placed his head in his hands to come up with a plan. No matter how much sleep he may or may not end up getting, he knew that, once the sun broke passed the horizon, he and Kobe were going to have to get up and book it. There was some temptation to take one last look through the house to see if there was anything that they may find of use, but he knew that the both of them were carrying enough as is and didn't want to slow them down any more than they had to be.

Instead, he would take the reigns of this operation and go back to his truck. He knew that Kobe wanted to keep searching for his sister, but all of the leads that they had for finding her were gone, and Todd didn't want to continue on a wild goose chase that had more of a likelihood of getting them killed than coming up with anything substantial. He'd still humor the boy and let him look for any sign of 'Ana' from the truck window, but Todd was putting an end this running around bullshit once the sun was in the sky. 

Kobe's mention of a gun store earlier that night came to Todd's mind, and he put that idea aside as a potential place to go to once they were on the road again. If luck was in their favor and the place was abandoned, it would be a nice place to pick up some extra ammunition than what Kobe's father had owned as well as maybe a little more extra fire power, but he wasn't going to chance what was basically an armory abandoned during these times too much. Where they would go from there, though, is what was causing any potential plans to come to a complete halt.

So far Todd had only been driving in the opposite direction that the Green Flu had come from, but so far it had come up absolutely fruitless and he constantly found himself just on the brink of the infection's spread. This city was the closest he had come to not seeing any infected, but the Tank that came stampeding through the streets along with what used to be Kobe's half-brother put a stop to any briefly blooming hope that the infection hadn't reached this location as well. At this point Todd was beginning to tell himself to stamp out any hope that may take root since it all seemed to die off soon after anyway.

If he couldn't outrun it, though, where could he go? Certainly not toward it, that was the route of someone who wanted to die. He didn't trust CEDA at all after how much they seemed to be covering up the shit that was happening, saying that it was under control. But what did that leave? Did he try to find a place yet untouched by the infection, difficult to reach by infected means, and just sit on his ass? Would this shit even end or would the world just burn to the ground?

Internal dilemma after internal dilemma continued to swim through his brain for another good half hour or so before an unfamiliar noise broke Todd out of his quickly spiraling thoughts. His hand immediately shot to the glock that rested beneath his pillow as his eyes scanned the room for any anomalies that could cause harm to him and his companion. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the noise was coming from the bed that Kobe was currently sleeping in. For a moment fear spiked through Todd's system, that something had happened to the kid and now he was going to turn on him as well. 

The fear was short lived when a whimper left the boy's mouth and Todd realized that those weren't sounds of a turning infected, but of a nightmare that seemed to slowly be growing out of control. For a moment Todd considered leaving the boy alone, to sort through his mental problems on his own, as he had no idea how to even begin to help in situations like this. But he remembered that Kobe trusted him, and how much Todd himself had disliked not having anyone to help him through his own nightmares when he was younger.

So, unsure of himself but determined to at least do something, Todd slowly got to his feet and crossed the room to reach the bed Kobe was now tossing and turning in, knocking covers askew and making various noises of distress. He froze for a moment before getting himself to reach a hand out to place on the boy's shoulder to stop his thrashing and attempt to rouse Kobe out of his nightmare. His reward was the boy striking out with his other arm, his free hand smacking Todd on the chest and making the older man reconsider his decision. 

"Fuck! Kid! It's me!" When the yelling seemed to upset the boy more, Todd forced himself to level his voice and instead speak loudly but calmly. "Kobe. Kobe. Wake up. It's just a nightmare." He kept his hand on the boy's shoulder, shaking him in an attempt to wake up the boy. Slowly, the tenseness left Kobe's shoulders and he stopped making noises in his sleep along with any further attempts of violence. Todd was noticing that at some point tears had begun to run down the boy's face and, when Kobe opened his eyes, he was met with somewhat glassy eyes that took a few blinks to clear up. 

"Hey. Welcome back." Kobe remained silent, still seeming to try to process what was going on. When he first laid eyes on Todd, his face held that same expression he had worn when they first met. As seconds passed and recognition began to settle in, though, the boy's face fell and he slumped bonelessly into the pillows. "I had a bad dream..."

"I could tell. Ya hit me a little hard there during it." Todd knew those were the wrong words when Kobe tensed up again, and he back-peddled, "I get it, you were probably scared or some shit. I don't blame ya for it." Kobe continued to stay silent, but at least his eyes didn't still hold that guilty look that they had gained when the violent action had first been mentioned. "...Y'wanna talk about it?" Todd was unsurprised when he was answered with a silent shake of the head, and wasn't about to spout that talking about that kind of shit could help. Despite how true those words were, he didn't want to force the boy to open up if he didn't want to.

There were several more minutes of silence before either of them spoke up again. "'m sorry." This time it was Todd's turn to shake his head, having already made it clear that he didn't hold it against the boy. When did he even start referring to Kobe as 'boy' instead of 'the kid'? It was a transition he hadn't even noticed until just now, and not one that he wanted to currently dwell on. "Why are you awake anyway?"

"Couldn't sleep worth shit. My brain wouldn't shut the hell up." Todd was expecting some sort of quip, 'I didn't know your brain could talk' or something of the sort, so when he was met only with silence he was at a loss for words. "Sorry." Okay, that really caught him off guard.

"Must've messed with you pretty hard. You're not takin' shots at me like you normally do." He knew that he was asking for it, having pointed such a thing out, but Todd wanted to bring Kobe back to how he usually acted (no matter how annoying it could be). "You could say that. Just. A lot of bad stuff happened." Todd didn't pry further, knowing that doing so would most likely cause Kobe to quiet back down and not say anything else. "It was a dream about what happened earlier... only I wasn't in Ana's room and watched dad hit mom... and then he turned into that Tank thing... and I saw him hurt mom and hurt Ana.." 

Todd had a feeling that the boy's father did more than just 'hurt' people in Kobe's dream if the boy's expression was anything to go by, but he didn't push for further details. "I'm sorry you had to go through that." He didn't really know what to say in this sort of situation or how to help the boy out. Apparently Todd's words were good enough, though, as he quickly found his arms full of twelve-year-old. He had to stumble back to avoid the two of them falling to the ground, but got his balance fast enough before anything further could happen. 

"He got you, too..." It took a few moments for Todd to process the words before he realized just what exactly Kobe was talking about. Part of his nightmare... had included Todd dying as well? "Kobe, you've known me for a few hours. I doubt I've made that much of an impact on ya."

"You have though!" Kobe shot back, now glaring up at the older man. "You were a scary looking weirdo who was bad at making me feel better and swore a lot, but you still made sure I was safe and tried to help me look for my sister. Even when I annoyed you, you made sure nothing happened to me..." The fire in the boy's words quickly died out and he found himself looking down and to the side. "I dunno what would have happened if you just got in your truck and left me there." Todd had an idea, but he wasn't going to voice it, not when there was already enough rolling through Kobe's mind. 

"So I guess it's normal for me to be afraid of my dad hurting you." Now this was getting weird. "Can we, uh, call your dad somethin' else? 'Cuz he sounds like a piece of shit and he's sorta a giant Tank now." Was that too forward? Oh shit, the kid's gone silent again, this was too much. "Nathan." At the small noise of confusion that the name was met with, Kobe clarified, "That's his name, Nathan. That's what Mal always called him too. At least, when he wasn't saying other things that I really shouldn't repeat."

"Somethin' tells me I would've gotten along well with your brother." Kobe's face took on the first smile that Todd had seen on the boy for a while, letting the older man know that he had chosen his words wisely. "I think you would have too. Mal is... was a big dork like you are. He was a really cool person." Todd didn't like seeing how quickly that smile fell and placed a hand on the boy's head. "Hey, let's, uh... let's stop talkin' about that for now, alright? You think you can get back to sleep? Mornin's gonna be here a lot sooner than either of us will want."

Kobe made a face, as if he didn't want to chance possibly falling back into that same nightmare, and Todd was preparing himself for the both of them to be going into the next day without any sleep. "Can I sleep with you? Ana used to let me do that when I would have nightmares." When Todd took a few moments too long to answer, Kobe pulled himself away, his expression falling. "Never mind. It's a stupid question. I mean, I'm twelve, I'm just this kid that you just met. I can sleep on my own-"

"Yeah." Kobe's mouth shut with an audible 'click', not having expected the positive answer. "Yeah?" He asked tentatively, wanting to make sure he heard correctly. There was a sigh and Todd nodded his head. "Yeah. Just, don't go pushin' me off or some shit, otherwise you're sleepin' on the floor." A smile slowly pulled at Kobe's face, but he didn't move until Todd motioned for the boy to go to the bed that Todd had abandoned earlier, having picked the larger of the two sleeping arrangements for himself earlier that night. 

Todd watched as Kobe shuffled to the other side of the room and made himself comfortable under the blankets before he settled down next to the boy. "Thanks, Todd. You're... you're pretty cool."

"You're welcome, kid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always fear that I'm not doing that great of a job with realistically representing the shit that Kobe's gone through and basically tell myself 'it's internalized!' whenever I start questioning myself too much since that was basically my jam when I was that age.


	4. Intermission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way too long to get out, I am so sorry. Also I couldn't exactly think of a fitting title. I'm hoping, HOPING future updates wont take a month to get out from now on, especially since I'm starting to enter realms I've been looking forward to. I just have to figure out how to write those moments and make them actually good, believable, and not stupidly cheesy.

When Todd found himself slowly waking up, he noticed several things that happened to be wrong with his situation. To begin with, the mattress he was currently laying upon was way too comfortable to be the piece of shit he slept on in his apartment. Speaking of the apartment, wherever this was didn't smell faintly of smoke, urine, and bad cannabis. The most alarming thing, though, was the suffocating weight that was currently resting on his chest.

By the time his brain had fully waken up and allowed him to remember just where he was and what had happened the previous night, he had already flung himself upright in a panic, unintentionally throwing off the poor child who had been peacefully resting on the older male. Kobe was woken up with a shout as he was almost violently pulled out of his dreams, and had to use what little thought process existed so early after being woken up to keep himself from falling off the bed.

"What's the big deal?" Todd blinked owlishly, his brain still existing as a real life loading screen, as he tried to figure out just what was going on. Kobe, however, did not hold the same sentiment and continued to glare at the older male. "... Sorry. I, uh, forgot just what the hell was goin' on for a bit there."

"Did you have to throw me off, though?" The boy shot back, not at all deterred by Todd's answer. "You were the one crushin' me. Not my fault I decided I wanted to breathe." That caused the look to fall off of Kobe's face, as he realized just what he had apparently been doing right before the rude awakening. "Oh."

They continued to stay silent, neither of them really knowing what to say at this point. Kobe wanted to avoid all mention of the previous night and just why he was sleeping where he had been, and Todd didn't want to deal with the awkwardness that would come with 'talking about feelings' with someone he hadn't even known for a full twenty-four hours. Eventually the silence had to be broken, and was done so by a throat clearing from Todd before the man rolled out of bed and onto his feet, checking the time as he did so.

"Shit. We overslept." There was a small clock on the nightstand by Todd's head that alerted him of it being a quarter past eight, much later than he had originally wanted to get up and get back to being on the go. "We need to get movin' even more now than we did before." Already he was gathering up the supplies that he had shed before the two had climbed into bed the previous night, making sure not to leave anything behind.

While Kobe seemed like he wanted to argue on leaving so suddenly, Todd's actions make it very obvious that he wasn't going to be accepting any arguments. Instead, the boy puffed out his cheeks, nearly pouted, and started to put on his shoes. "So, where we goin'?" Todd paused in his actions, frowning slightly when he noticed that the boy was, again, mimicking his speech patterns, but didn't give any further sign that he had even noticed. "Surprised you're askin', considerin' the amount of shit you put me through last night."

Kobe made a face at that, knowing that the older male was making a very fine point, but didn't admit to the accusation. "But, we're gonna go grab my piece of shit truck, and possibly go to that gun shop you mentioned last night, and take further steps from there."

"What about Ana?" Todd straightened up, a stern look on his face. "I know you don't wanna hear this, but I doubt we'd find your sister. We don't even have anywhere else we can look for her. Best option we have now is to get what we need, then get the hell outta here. She would have wanted you to stay safe, wouldn't she?" Kobe silently nodded, knowing that Todd had a point. It didn't mean that he had to like it, though.

"Y'know where we're currently at, in relation to your place?" Todd questioned, having absolutely no idea where anything was anymore, not after the amount of running around they had done the night before, both in search of Kobe's older sister as well as running from Nathan the douchebag Tank. "Yeah, I know where we are. The walk should only be about ten minutes."

"Good. Less time we're on foot, the better." Kobe watched as Todd picked up the backpack that he had been carrying since the night before, slung it over his shoulder, then grabbed up the shotgun that had been basically gifted to him. "Ya got everything, kid?" The answer received was a nod as the boy hoisted his own book bag onto his back and lifted the pipe into the air. "Good. Wanted to make sure you didn't lose that thing. Piece of shit saved me several times yesterday."

Todd led the way out of the room and into the hallway, down the stairs, passed the dead infected, and out the door. From there, he stepped to the side, allowing for Kobe to to charge instead. "And don't go pullin' any of the shit you did last night, got it? We're goin' straight to your house, then gettin' the hell outta here. If you see anything important, tell me; go runnin' off by yourself again."

"I know, I know... don't have to keep telling me."

"I'll stop when you actually listen and prove that you're listening." Todd snarked back, missing the eye roll the boy gave at the words as the two began walking once more.

It was easy to see the rampage that the Tank had made the previous night: Clumps of ground, both dirt and concrete, had been wrenched from their placement and hurled dozens of meters away; many of the cars that had been seen parked by the sidewalk were left upturned, dented, and in some cases thrown haphazardly in multiple directions. Todd nearly walked right into Kobe when the boy stopped without warning, staring at a Chevy Sonic that was lodged halfway into the second floor of a house across the street, its rear-end still hanging in the air outside of the building. "He.. he did this?"

It was easy for Todd to know who 'he' was referring to, and didn't address the Tank by name or zombie type. "Yeah, I'd say so. Shit's freaky as hell. You get why I didn't want to come face ta face with one of 'em?" Kobe audibly gulped and simply nodded in response, before beginning to walk once more, quickening his pace.

There was more signs visible of the Tank's previous night's rampages as the two continued along the sidewalk, and while Kobe was taking in every single detail in fascinated horror, Todd was instead focusing on any sign of stray infected that would take advantage of the distraction to attack, scanning the horizon and occasionally turning his head to look behind them so that they weren't caught unaware. It was during one of these backward glances that Kobe took the chance to stop, again, and caused Todd to actually run right into him this time.

Exclamations of, "Shit!" and "Hey, watch it!" were yelled at the same time as Todd righted himself and Kobe stumbled forward. The question that Todd was going to shoot at the boy in regards to why he stopped died in his throat when he looked forward and easily saw the reasoning; his truck was flipped upside down, facing the opposite direction he had originally parked in, and completely totaled.

Glass from the shattered windshield and front windows was scattered around the vehicle, the front half of the cab collapsed in on itself from the weight being applied to it, as well as from the force that it had undoubtedly fallen from. "I don't think we're going to be driving from here..."

"No shit! Fuck!" Todd passed Kobe as he ran over to the vehicle, further inspecting the damage that had been done to it. "I know this thing was an old piece of shit... but it at least worked."

"So, are we gonna steal a car now or something?" Kobe asked as he looked around for any possible targets to help, only to be met with a scoff. "Can you hot-wire a car, kid? Because I sure as hell can't."

"Wait, really?" Todd wasn't suspecting the amount of surprise in Kobe's voice and gave the boy a mildly offended look. "No, I can't. Kinda person did you think I was?"

"I dunno! First time I saw you, you were covered in blood and wearing a skull mask! You're even wearing a stereotypical biker jacket. Were you just trying to be extra edgy?" The mildly offended look turned into a fully offended one. "No! You shittin' on my personal style tastes?"

"Yeah, I am. What about it?" Kobe snarked back. Todd opened his mouth to retort, before he remembered he was having an argument, about fashion sense of all things, with a literal twelve-year-old. He closed his mouth with an audible 'click', not taking the bait, and turned back toward his truck as he crouched down to see if there was even a way to get into the vehicle without shredding his skin from all of the broken glass. "I'm not fallin' for that one."

Kobe visibly deflated, even pouting a little, when he realized that Todd basically acknowledged his question and shut him down without a second thought. Instead of pushing further, he gave Todd a confused look and asked, "What're you doing?"

"I didn't take all of my stuff with me when we went lookin' for your sister last night, so some of my shit's still in here. Much as I hate having to carry more in this bag, better to take what we can so we don't have to go searchin' for it later."

When it became evident that there was no definite 'safe' way into the wrecked truck and that none of the doors were capable of being opened without some sort of machinery to assist, Todd shrugged off his backpack, followed by his jacket and -- lamenting it's still somewhat nice condition -- set the jacket down on the busted window with the least amount of glass with the interior facing upward. While avoiding as much glass as possible, he leopard crawled into the vehicle, only stopping once he was halfway inside and seeing that he wouldn't be able to go in any further without possibly injuring himself.

Though gravity had been a factor in causing damage to his truck, Todd was thankfully that it at least caused anything he was looking for to simply fall into easy view once he had twisted enough to look into what used to be the back seat. The case of remaining shotgun shells had, by some miracle, stayed securely shut and was in easy reaching distance. He grabbed hold of it and tossed it out the opposite window, not seeing how a small fall of a couple feet could somehow do more damage to it than tumbling around inside of a flipped vehicle.

To his disappointment, many of the bottles of water that he had left in the truck had burst open from the force with which they were most likely tossed around when the Tank decided to target the vehicle, leaving only a few bottles left in tact. They joined the box of shotgun shells outside the window, though they were tossed with a little more grace than the former object. Most of everything else that had been left in the vehicle was smashed to near uselessness, causing Todd to let out a groan of irritation before carefully backing back out of the window and into the open air.

Thankfully, no infected had taken advantage of his temporary distraction and attacked the two of them, and Kobe was doing a good job of playing 'look out' while Todd had been indisposed (either that, or the boy had quickly began to pretend he had been looking around the entire time once he saw Todd making his way out of the truck). "So, unfortunately for us, the Tank really fucked up what I had left inside of there." He still wasn't comfortable audibly saying Kobe's father's name when referring to the gargantuan infected. Todd picked up his jacket and flipped it around to see the damage done, frowning when he saw a few tears from where the broken glass had dug into the leather. "Shit, I really liked this one too."

"It's not like the zombies are gonna be judging your appearance or anything." Kobe pointed out, not seeing what the big deal was. Todd gave a sideways nod, a silent indication of 'you've got a point', and shrugged the jacket back on. "D'you got enough room in your bag for the shotgun shells? Mine's rather full and already heavy enough without addin' that to the mix." Kobe took off his book bag to check, unzipping the main compartment and shuffling things around to make room for the box. "Yeah, I can carry it."

"Great, glad to hear it." Todd stood up, picking up his backpack by the handle and guided Kobe around the vehicle to where he had tossed what little he could salvage from the wreck. He handed the box of shells to the boy and stuffed the water bottles where he could in his own bag. "So, we're on foot from here on out."

"You seriously can't hot-wire a car." Todd let out a groan at the insistence and forced himself to put the discussion to bed before it could go any further, and did so by simply ignoring the fact that Kobe had even said anything. "So, where's that gun store?"

This answer came with a bit more waiting while Kobe tried to figure out just where the building was in correlation to their current location. "Before you go blaming me on not knowing where we need to go, mom and dad have only actually driven by the building a couple times, and they've never gone inside while I've been with them. So I may get a little turned around." He admitted.

"Kid, you know this place a hellova lot more than I do, so you'd end up gettin' us there better than I could. So long as you don't go leadin' us across town, only to find out it's on the opposite side, I'll be keepin' my mouth shut."

"Just be sure to remember that promise..." Kobe said, not believing Todd's sincerity, something the older man picked up on. "I will. Like I said, you've got more experience here than I do. You're my map, so I'm trustin' ya." That got a bit more of a smile out of the boy, and he returned the words of encouragement with a nod. "Okay."

The walk from there was slow, slower than their earlier journey that morning due to Kobe's earlier admitted inexperience on where they were going. Soon enough, though, the suburbs that Todd had grown familiar with over the past several hours slowly faded away into more of a city view as houses grew fewer and fewer and were replaced with buildings of shopping, business, and even industrial nature.

The environmental change only put Todd even more on edge, as he remembered the amount of infected that had swarmed the towns he had passed through the day before in areas of similar appearance to where they were now. His concerns were not left unwarranted for long though. What started out as a faint groaning noise to his left increased until it became an aggressive, almost hissing type of sound.

The moment it started, Todd whipped his head in the direction to see a very much infected woman shambling into the street, a shamble that turned into an almost full on sprint when she caught sight of the uninfected duo. While Todd's experience with shotguns amounted to a total of absolutely nothing, he still spun around to face her head-first with the gun held securely in both hands and following his direction in a swift movement. He didn't even have time to take aim before she was upon him and he just had to pull the trigger.

Multiple events happened at that exact moment: the woman's body was nearly severed in half at the torso from the force of the blast and she fell to the ground without any further movement; Kobe let out a startled scream, not expecting the loud bang from the shotgun nor to see the gruesome sight immediately after; Todd nearly collapsed himself from the force of the gun's kickback and was thankful that he had managed to at least move it to his side moments before shooting it. When both of them registered what had happened, if Todd thought he was bloody before, the spray of blood and viscera that spewed from the body easily made his apperance ten times worse. 

"That's... that's a body."

"Yep."

"That's a body! You shot her!"

"Yep." The noise that Kobe made at Todd's seemingly nonchalant attitude was strikingly similar to the noises of frustration that Todd had been making the previous night. "Why are you so calm!? She's dead! You shot her!"

"Because if I didn't do so, she'd've munched us. Also, if I go thinkin' about it too much... well, that's not a moment I want to live through a second time." Todd didn't further elaborate on that and simply kept walking, leaving Kobe staring at the fallen infected in shock and wondering what the older man was even talking about.

"You comin'? Or are ya gonna just spend some quality time with a corpse?" Todd called back over his shoulder. "There's gonna be a lot more of that the further we go into this place." He stopped to turn back so he could fully see the boy, a serious look on his face. "This is something you're gonna have to get used to. I'm sorry to tell ya this, but the world's gone to shit. This is the new normal."

"Mom literally just went to work yesterday. How did this happen so fast?" 

"Honestly? I dunno. I was fired from my job just the day before yesterday, and woke up the next morning to find my apartment full'a these things. It comes when ya least expect it, and doesn't know when to stop. Dunno how I thought I was gonna out drive it. It's honestly surprising it didn't get here sooner than it did with how fast shit's spreadin'."

Kobe finally managed to pull his attention away from the dead woman, though he found himself having the urge to look back at the sight, like some sort of car crash that demands your attention. He tried to register the words Todd spoke, the story he told, and looked down at the pipe that he still carried; a pipe covered in so much dried blood to the point where it could be almost be mistaken for rust. Almost.

"Does it get easier?" The laugh Todd replied with was a hollow one, no humor found within the sound. "Funny question to ask when you haven't done any killin'." The 'yet' was left unspoken, but it was still hanging there silently. "Honestly though? No. It doesn't. Best that you get is you just start feelin' numb to it, gettin' used to it. But it doesn't get easier to deal with if ya start thinkin' about it too long."

Though most of his face was covered by the mask he still insisted on wearing, Kobe was still able to make out the somewhat troubled look that crossed Todd's face for just a moment, before it vanished as quickly as it came. "C'mon. We're lucky nothin' was drawn to the sound of the gunshot, but it's best to keep movin' before that luck runs out and life pisses on us again."

Todd didn't begin walking away again like he had earlier, and instead waited in silence for Kobe to get his feet to start moving again. It took longer than either of them appreciated, but Todd understood the shock the boy must be feeling at this point while Kobe was just trying to figure out how to get his body to start listening again. 

After a few more seconds of hesitation, Kobe managed to move his feet from the spot he had been standing in, making sure to position himself so there was no way of seeing the dead infected again, as he knew it would cause him to freeze up again. "Gotta get better at that, though." Kobe gave Todd a questioning look at the man's words once they were side by side again, causing him to elaborate further. "We aren't gonna have a lot of time like we just did for you to freeze up on me like that each time we run into an infected. Sometimes we gotta kill 'em and keep goin', otherwise they'll overwhelm us for sure. We're outnumbered a thousand to one at this point."

"I'll try to do better next time." It wasn't a promise, Kobe knew he couldn't say such a thing and mean it for certain at this point when his first reaction was that extreme, but he would do his best not to freeze up again. "Best we've got." Todd knew he couldn't ask more from this boy, couldn't push him to forcefully accept this world he was thrust into. If this was another adult he was dealing with it would be a different story, but Kobe was just a kid, not even a teenager. He knew that forcing acceptance onto the boy would only force him away and make things even more difficult than they already were.

"You won't leave me behind, will you?" The question seemed to come out of nowhere and caught Todd off guard, tearing him out of his inner thoughts. "What do you mean?"

"If things get bad and I freeze up again, you won't leave me, will you?" Todd didn't look at Kobe, but he could imagine the torn look on the boy's face as he contemplated the possibility of this person who had protected him over the past several hours and helped him through his nightmares simply leaving him behind to save his own skin. Todd's hesitation on the question didn't help matters either.

"No. We're in this shit together. We're gonna get through this together." The words almost tasted bitter in Todd's mouth, as they went against everything he had been used to at this point in his life. He had been on his own for years now, only looking after himself and not wanting to get close to others for various reasons. The fact that he was throwing this all away, for some kid he hadn't even been with for a full twenty-four hours no less just felt wrong. 

Todd did his best to quash that feeling down, and the look of hope on Kobe's face when Todd finally faced him made it a little more bearable as he gave the smallest of smiles back. "I've got your back. Just make sure you've got mine too."


	5. Everyone's a Critic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aye! It didn't take a month plus this time!  
> All seriousness, though, this one took some time, not because of difficulty coming up with ideas, but more so inability to actually find time to write. But, I got it out, and hopefully I'll be able to crank the next chapters out without too much issue as well.

Quite some time had passed since Todd and Kobe had ended the conversation that had left Todd feeling a little ill and Kobe more assured than he had been in a while. Any infected that were spotted after that point were either too distracted to notice the duo, or too far away to warrant shooting down and possibly alerting more trouble than was worth it. 

After the initial attack, though, Kobe found himself keeping a closer eye out for anything that might cause any harm or trouble and Todd noticed that kid freeze up a little anytime an infected was noticed. There was only the briefest moment's hesitation where he stopped walking, immediately followed by him picking up the pace a little more. There were certainly more infected inside of the city the further inward they went, especially in some of the 'sketchier' looking areas.

Todd was beginning to become concerned; they had managed to make it this far without anything worse happening besides the first infected woman. Something had to give, and indeed it did. 

The first sign was a loud squealing noise, followed by a sort of gurgling. Todd paused his walking and grabbed Kobe by the shoulder to stop the boy's movements. Before Kobe could even ask what was going on, the older male head up a finger to his mask where his mouth was hidden, a sign of 'keep quiet'.

They continued to listen for further sounds that seemed out of the ordinary, while also keeping a vigilant eye. The gurgling and squealing had gotten louder, whatever it was coming from was approaching quickly. Just when it had reached a peak volume where they _had_ to see whatever the noise was coming from, it was replaced with a loud hacking. 

Todd's thoughts immediately flew back to the article that he had read yesterday by River when he heard the final noise, and quickly pulled Kobe back into just as a ball of burning acid landed right where they had been standing. It fizzled and popped as it spread out, almost like it was trying to reach out to the survivors that it had missed in the initial attack.

While Kobe's attention focused on the acid in a morbid fascination, Todd's eyes darted around their surroundings for any sign of the spitter that had tried, and failed, to harm the two of them. Taking in the direction the spit had come from, his eyes quickly zeroed in on an infected that was currently trying to hobble away from the scene of the crime.

He could immediately spot the qualities of its appearance from River's description, from the glowing green skin, to the distended gut, to the face that had been half melted away from the acid that was pouring from its gullet. She looked like she would have been a rather pretty woman before the infection hit and all but ruined her nice looks. Todd didn't focus on the 'what ifs', though, only the current events and the fact that this thing had to go before it launched another sneak attack further down the line.

It seemed like the Spitter had difficulty moving after spitting its acidic load, like the attack took a toll on her body and caused her enough pain to make getting around almost impossible. While it was a bad situation for her, it made Todd's actions easier as he took aim with the shotgun (making sure to hold it properly this time so there wasn't as much kickback) and fired. 

Due to the distance between the survivors and the infected, the gun's blast was not nearly as effective as it had been earlier, allowing the infected woman to survive the initial shot. Todd pulled the trigger a second time and watched as the Spitter collapsed to the ground, her death rather obvious from the acid that poured from her body like a broken water balloon.

Kobe had been so focused on the acid that he didn't even notice the Spitter until after Todd had fired the first shot. He was shocked, to say the least, at the grotesque appearance of the infected and almost applauded when she was dealt with. "What the heck was that?"

"Spitter. I guess they're just filled with acid and spits it at people when they see anyone that isn't infected." Todd nodded toward the puddle of acid that was now starting to dissipate as it stopped bubbling and fizzing, eventually fading away entirely. "It's pretty nasty."

"Just 'nasty'? It shot an acid loogie at us!" Kobe exclaimed, making a face of disgust. "How do you know about these things anyway? You never really told me last night, said it was too late. Well, now it's during the day."

"Yeah, it's durin' the day, but we're out in the open. It's somethin' I need to bring up with a cellphone, and it could take a lotta time depending on how shit my remainin' phones are." Kobe didn't miss the fact that Todd used 'phones', plural, when referring to the electronics. "Once we get inside the gun shop, or at least some place a little safer, I can bring it up and let ya read over the article I found. The Spitter, Smoker, Tank, and Witch aren't the only ones out there. There's still some more."

Kobe felt his stomach do a small flip when Todd mentioned the Smoker, remembering his discovery of what happened to his half brother. Just as Todd had suggested, though, he buried the feeling and did his best not to focus on it; the past was in the past, and there was nothing that he could do to change it.

"I'm holding you to that. I wanna know more about this stuff. Is there, like, a shortened version you can give to me? So I know a little bit about what's going on?" Kobe questioned, feeling like, if Todd knew what was going on, he could at least vocally share it. 

"I mean, I'm shit with describin' that kind of thing, but I guess I can give it a go?" Todd questioned, shrugging. "So... we've come across about half of them already, so that makes it easier." He thought for a moment before looking ahead and nodding in the direction that they had been travelling. "Let's keep goin', and I'll summarize what I know. Better to keep movin' instead of keepin' in the same place and riskin' gettin' ambushed."

Kobe looked mildly disappointed, but understood where Todd was coming from. "I'll still be telling you about it, I just don't want us ta be stayin' in the same place for too long." Kobe nodded and continued walking, making sure he knew where he was at and where he was going.

"The ones that are left that we haven't run into are the Hunter, the Jockey, the Boomer, and the Charger."

"Who comes up with these names?" Kobe questioned, finding the whole situation rather odd. He could understand Spitter and Tank, but the others just seemed off. "It makes sense once I tell ya. The Hunter basically can jump extremely well and pounces on you, tearin' into ya. The Jockey, well... its actions are in its name. Fucker jumps on ya, blockin' your ability ta see, and starts steerin' ya where it wants you to go. Basically have to fight the things off, otherwise you're in a bunch of trouble.

"Boomer is... well, fucker's just extremely gross." Kobe looked back and gave Todd a questioning glance. "Worse than the thing that spits acid at us?" He challenged, only to be met with a firm nod. "The thing vomits on ya, and any infected in the area RUNS toward that shit. Apparently they pop like a goddamn balloon though, so they've got that goin' for them."

"Which is the reason for the name 'Boomer'?" Todd answered with a nod and a 'yeah', then moved on to the last subject. "Charger... well, has a giant ass arm and charges at ya. Luckily it sounds like they tend to miss if ya manage to step outta the way in time."

Kobe silently processed the information that had been given to him, nodding a few times. "Well, that sounds.. fun." The sarcasm was almost dripping from the words and caused Todd to let out a small, hollow laugh. "That's the fuckin' truth." 

"And just in time, too." Kobe had stopped walking and held out his arms in a show of 'tada' as he faced a building that didn't seem to be too different from the others. The thing that stood out the most was the large sign that read, "Mendez Firearms: Arm Yourself to the Teeth!" with the words lined with what looked like poorly drawn fangs on the top and bottom of the sign. "Interestin' slogan... Makes me wonder if the designer had a fetish or somethin'." Todd commented, noticing the strange amount of detail that didn't seem to do any favors for the poor teeth.

"What's a fetish?"

"I'm not answerin' that." Todd approached the doors and tried both of the handles, only to find the building, unsurprisingly, locked. "Well shit." He leaned closer, placing his face against the glass as he tried to see if he could make out anything within the darkened store.

"Can't we just break the doors?" Kobe offered as he held up the pipe, ready to commit crime. Todd just barely saw the motion through the glass' reflection and quickly backed up, grabbing the other end of the pipe as he did so to stop the boy from doing anything drastic. "Hang on there, let's not get too crazy just yet. With this being a shop that's bound to have some expensive shit, there's gotta be an alarm hooked up to everythin'. The last thing we wanna be doin' is settin' off somethin' that'll make all of these zombies come runnin' our way and causin' shit to go south." Todd explained.

"Well then, how are we going to get inside? Because we did't come all this way for nothing." Kobe stated with a frown. "I'll figure somethin' out."

Apparently 'figuring something out' simply meant that he was going to start staring back into the building again. The glare from the light hitting the glass was making it difficult to see inside, as well as his eyes not being able to completely focus on just the interior of the building. "Keep an eye out for me, 'kay?" He didn't wait for an answer before he cupped his hands around the sides of his face to further cut down on outside visuals. He continued to squint until his eyes became a little more used to the darkness and began to pick up more and more details inside of the shop.

"You find your way in yet?" Kobe's tone was easily showing just how bored he was simply standing there and playing the game of lookout. There was silence from the other male and the boy almost asked a second time before he heard, "I think there's someone in there."

"An alive someone? Dead someone? Zombie someone? Because those last two aren't gonna help out." 

"Dunno, they're not movin'." The details were hard to make out, but the longer that Todd stared into the dark abyss that was the closed gun store, the more he could make out the shape of a person who just seemed to be sitting in a chair behind the main counter of the store. It was hard to discern if they were male or female, just that they had long hair on the left side of their head with the right side seeming to be completely shaved to the scalp. 

The person looked almost hunched over and unresponsive, but Todd began frantically waving one hand in the air to try to garner the attention of the individual if they were alive. There was a small jump from the body at the action and they finally looked up. The fact that they didn't immediately start bum rushing the door like any other infected would at the sight of an uninfected was a good sign. Todd's chaotic waving slowed down to be more reminiscent of a normal wave 'hello', only to be met with a brief hesitation followed by the person on the other side of the door making a rather rude gesture.

"Hey!" Kobe jumped at Todd's exclamation and gave the man a look that asked what he was yelling about. "The asshole gave me the finger." The confusion turned into amusement as the boy began to laugh, until he realized just what that had actually meant. "Wait, they know we're out here, and basically told us to 'fuck off'?"

Todd grew silent, not expecting the swear to come out of the boy's mouth, and not quite knowing how to feel about it. "Don't say shit like that." 

"You say it all the time." Kobe shot back. "I'm not a good role model. Leave the mouthin' off to me. But yeah, that's basically what they told us to do." Kobe all but abandoned his 'look out' duty (much to Todd's frustration) to join the older man in the act of peeping inside of the building to see if he could see the other person. It didn't take nearly as long to spot them now that he knew there was someone in there and, upon seeing the person still aiming the gesture their way, returned it with one of his own. Using both hands.

The person on the other hand had the audacity to look affronted at the action, then turned their attention at Todd as if to ask 'You're just gonna let him do that?'

"You started it, asshole!" Todd called loud enough for the person in the store to at least hear the muffled words. He almost further yelled when the person looked like they were going back to what they had been doing before to ignore the two outside of the building, but soon brought up a sign that clearly had some sort of writing on it. "You're too far away, can't see shit!"

The person on the other side retaliated by only leaning forward to the point where their upper torso was on the counter and their arms holding the sign out just a few feet further than it had been when they first brought it up. Todd could still make out absolutely nothing. "That doesn't help!" Kobe joined in with the needless yelling. 

The person seemed to be getting fed up with this point and pulled themselves off from leaning on the counter. They then, somehow, vaulted over the counter with one hand while the other still held the sign, quickly crossed the floor space between the counter and the store's doors, and slammed the sign onto the doors with an extremely audible 'thud'. _'What do you want?'_

Todd had had to back away from the doors when the person (who he was now able to see was a young woman) had slapped the piece of cardboard in their faces in order to read the four words that had been hastily written down. He barely kept from rolling his eyes and simply gave her an unimpressed look. She merely responded by giving him the finger, AGAIN, and using the digit to point to the sign. "Maybe it's to be let into the damn buildin'? Wouldn't that make sense?"

"Why should I?" Ah. She actually speaks. She had a bit of an accent, but Todd couldn't pinpoint where it was from. Maybe she was this 'Mendez' person the sign had spoken of? Would explain why she seemed to be so protective of her current location, but didn't excuse her rudeness. "There's zombies out here, lady! Why do you think?" Kobe answered this time. She looked down at the boy, her face scrunching up in slight confusion, before looking back at Todd and glaring. "So?"

"So? So? We'd like to get inside some place, maybe get somethin' for defense? Make sense to ya? Unless you want us to break in and make a bunch of noise." Todd plucked the pipe out of Kobe's hand, getting a 'hey!' in response. He wasn't too fond of how loosely the boy had been holding the weapon and how easy it was to nab it. Todd didn't dwell on it, though, and instead raised the weapon up as if he was about to act on his threat. He watched the woman's eyes widen in slight panic, before quickly narrowing in irritation. "Fine! But don't going trying anything." He watched as she reached behind her, and that's when he realized that she currently had an assault rifle of some type slung over her shoulder. 

"We just want inside. And some more defense. Got our word." The woman still didn't seem pleased, but she had at least stopped making rude gestures and instead backed away from the door. He watched as she moved around inside of the shop, eventually stopping at one of the walls and doing... something, he couldn't make out what. There was a 'click' above their heads soon after and Todd tried one of the door handles again. This time the door easily swung open and allowed them entry, which the duo quickly took advantage of and bolted inside. Once the door closed there was a second 'click', making Todd assume that they had all but been locked into the building. 

He had been about to give the woman thanks for letting them in, only to find himself face-to-face with the wrong end of an assault rifle. Apparently their distraction had lasted long enough for her to whip the weapon around to aim it at Todd and Kobe. If she looked peeved earlier, he new expression made her earlier one look like a mild case of annoyance. "So. How long before I have to fill you with lead, too?"


	6. The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey! Another day, another chapter finally typed up! Some of the things in this chapter were things that I knew that I would implement at some point, and others just kinda popped up as an idea as I was typing this all out. I'd say I'm rather happy with this one.

Todd didn't miss how Kobe seemed to freeze up at the sight of the weapon being pointed at the two of them, nor the fact that the woman had sounded like they weren't the first that she had pulled a gun on. While most of his instincts were screaming at him to pull up his own gun, to shoot her before she could shoot either of them, but he knew that doing so would only cause further problems and most likely end with him or Kobe getting hurt in the process.

Instead, he allowed himself to drop his weapons and slowly raise his hands up in a show of not currently holding any sort of weapon. Out of the corner of his eye, Todd could make out Kobe copying his actions. "Let's just... not do anythin' either of us will go regrettin', alright?" He watched as she scrunched her face in irritation, not seeming to hold the same sentiment. "So, when are you going to try to eat my face?"

"Eat your face?" Kobe parroted. "We're not infected." Todd stated, seeing where the question was leading to. "You can check us over for any bites, but we've been makin' sure not to let ourselves get anywhere near that shit."

"Right, right. That's what the last guy said." The woman said as she nodded toward the back corner of the store, where Todd could make out the faint outline of a body laying on the floor in the dark. Speaking of the dark, "Can we get some lights on in here?"

"No. The more this place looks like some run down building, the less likely I'll get bothered. Not like that stopped you two, though." 

"That's because we didn't come here for you. This place's a gun store. We're basically living in the zombie apocalypse at the moment. Makes sense that we'd want some extra fire power if we could get it."

"So you actually would have broken into the building if I wasn't here to let you in?" The woman asked incredulously, disbelieving that the duo would do such a thing. "You do know that most buildings are alarmed, right? And that breaking in would, in turn, set off said alarm? Which would make all of the infected in the area start swarming you?" Her voice's pitch heightened more and more with each question that she asked. "And you wouldn't have a way to turn it off, plus breaking in would make it really hard to barricade yourself from any attacks anyway." Had she not been pointing a gun at the two of them and trying to look intimidating, Todd had a feeling that the woman would have crossed her arms and given them a condescending look instead.

"Would've been a last ditch effort to get in. I already knew that this shit would be alarmed to hell and back, which is why I used breaking in as a threat to get you to let me in." Todd didn't let her know that it wasn't something he was actually willing to follow through with. "Look, we're not here to attack you, we just want to supply up and go."

"Where are you going?"

"Why are you asking?" Ah. Kobe speaks once more, having held off long enough from mouthing off. "I'm just wondering what your plans are, since CEDA's yet to show up here. You're actually the first people I've seen since I started seeing what looks like the walking dead outside." 

"We're figuring that out. Like hell we're goin' with CEDA, though. Those assholes were actin' like things weren't nearly as bad as they are. It's actually thanks to someone who was livin' through this the past few weeks that the kid and I are still alive." 

"What, you needed some help to know what to do against a bunch of sick people?" The blonde all but patronized, though she became confused at the look on Todd's face; he seemed to smirk at her words, though his eyes held absolutely no amusement. "I take it you haven't seen them, then. Infected that are a little bit more messed up than the usual common ones walkin' the street like that poor sap?" He nodded toward an infected man that he had seen stumbling around in the street out of the corner of his eye. 

"No?" The woman was starting to just barely lower her gun, though it was obvious that she was still incredibly on guard. "You're not saying there's more, right? I mean, we're already working with what are basically zombies at this point."

"A lot more. We just saw one on our way here." Kobe piped up. "It spat acid at us." There was a deadpan silence as the woman simply stared at the boy, as if waiting for him to suddenly yell, 'sike!'. "You can't be serious." 

"As a heart attack. Look, I'll even show you if you promise ya won't go shootin' me for reachin' into my pocket." Todd waited for an audible response from the woman, which she gave after a few minutes of hesitation. "Fine. But do anything else and you're losing a kneecap."

Todd simply gave her a shrug to show that he heard and accepted her words before he slowly removed his backpack and crouched down so as to be able to access the pack with a bit more ease. It took some digging, but he eventually found one of the remaining few cellphones that he had gained through rather illegitimate means the previous days. He silently hoped that this one wouldn't have some sort of pass code on it, otherwise he believed he would find himself having to give some rather shady answers to any questions that the woman may have for him.

Apparently life had decided that Todd was having enough problems at the moment and didn't send him another issue to have to bullshit his way through and allowed him to unlock the phone without any further security standing in his way of doing so. 

He looked up for a small moment to see that the woman was having her gun now pointed down at him, possibly having deemed Kobe as not a person to worry about. When she caught Todd looking up she simply cocked an eyebrow and nodded her head at the phone sitting in his hands. Taking the hint, he went back to focusing on the screen and quickly connected to the cellular data. The loading on the phone was incredibly slow, and it took a moment for the search browser to even fully load. 

After several minutes of tense silence that made Todd more and more nervous the longer the gun was pointed down at him he was beginning to grow increasingly desperate to find the site that he had discovered earlier but his search yielded nothing. "C'mon, c'mon... it was here yesterday..." 

It was five agonizing pages later in the search bar when it finally clicked. "Goddammit. God damn fuckin' CEDA trash!" The exclamation was unexpected and caused the woman to take a step back before quickly putting her gun toward him once more. Kobe simply stared at Todd like the man was slowly losing his mind. "Those assholes. Those fuckin' assholes."

"What are you throwing a fit about? Realizing that you can't pull your shit anymore?" The woman taunted. "That's not it. I should've seen this comin'. I don't know why I didn't. The fact that I hadn't seen anythin' about this earlier is fuckin' tellin'. CEDA's coverin' this shit up." He wanted to scream, wanted to throw something, break something, take out his anger some way. But he didn't budge, didn't make any further action. The fact that the phone he was holding was still in one piece despite the anger he was currently feeling was rather telling of his current self control.

"They didn't want people knowin' how bad this shit got, didn't want panic goin' on or somethin'. Wanted to make people believe that they had it under control. But instead of it helpin', it just lead to things gettin' a hellova lot worse than it needed to. And they're still doin' it."

"I still don't believe you. I think you just want me to think you're telling the truth and let down my guard. But I'm not buying it." Todd wanted to scream at her, yank the gun out of her hands, try to get her to see sense. Before he could do any of that though, or something far more stupid, Kobe spoke up instead, "He's not lying!"

This time it was Todd's turn to recoil. Even when the boy had been throwing a fit about finding his sister and being a bit of a brat the previous night, it didn't come close to the amount of emotion coming out of the kid's mouth now. His outburst even caused the woman to turn her gun from Todd to the boy, something the older man was not having.

Kobe opened his mouth to speak further, to vent further, when Todd ordered, "Get that gun out of his face now! Turn it on the kid again and I don't care if you shoot me in the process, I'm yankin' that thing from your goddamn hands." His threat, no, his promise was finished with an aggressive hiss, and for once he found himself actually happy to have an assault rifle trained on his face again. 

Kobe's temper seemed to die down, stunned by Todd's sheer force to protect him, and his next words came out with far less power than his earlier words had. "Todd's not lying." He repeated. "I know... cause not only did we see an acid person earlier... but we also saw my dad and my brother. And they weren't like the others. They were scary, messed up. They could do things the other zombies can't. There's worse stuff out there than the zombies.

"I didn't believe it either when he first told me, and then I saw them last night and now I know that it's bad out there. That bad things are happening and we can't trust anyone but each other. We just wanna get stuff to stay safe and go." Kobe trailed off, seeming to have lost all of his steam along the way, and allowed himself to drop to the floor with an audible 'thump'. It almost looked as if he was pouting to anyone who hadn't been around during the whole escapade. 

There was silence once more with Kobe having said his words, Todd still angry with both CEDA and the gun toting woman, and the woman quietly processing what both had told her. She still found it hard to believe, but then again there were infected people wandering around like zombies. They weren't the kind of zombies that she knew from moving and tv shows, but more like people who were sick to the point of rabidness and an inability to comprehend anything like a normal person anymore. Advanced rabies, she would say.

Advanced rabies didn't make people create acid, though, or give others crazy abilities like these two were spouting about, which made the woman still unable to believe everything she had been told. That sort of thing was in the realm of crazy people talk. But then why would they spin a story so unbelievable and try to pass it off as the truth, knowing it sounded absolutely ridiculous. Unless it was true?

As she was starting to contemplate that maybe these two weren't just spouting nonsense that she noticed that the duo at her feet suddenly froze, a stiffness coming upon them that they hadn't even had when she first trained her gun on them. They had noticed something and that something poured fear into their very beings. It only took a few seconds before she too became aware of the wrongness of the situation. Earthquakes were unheard of in their location, to the point where she had never felt one during her entire time living in that town and only knew of the way that they had felt due to stories from others. 

Yet she felt the subtle tremors of the ground shaking, tremors that grew more and more powerful as seconds ticked by. Without warning Todd sprang to his feet, grabbing Kobe by the wrist as he did so. He didn't care if the motion spooked the woman to the point of firing, he had to get the two of them out of view of the front windows. "Stop where you are!"

"Fuck off!" The woman looked almost offended by the crude language spat at her and it was only the sheer panicked look in Todd's eyes that stopped her from firing a warning shot. These two were terrified of this 'earthquake' to the point of not giving a single fuck about a gun trained on them. So she allowed them to continue what they were doing and watched as Todd all but vaulted over the wooden counter that she had been sitting behind when the duo first showed up. The older man quickly helped Kobe over as well once he had secure enough footing and the boy disappeared from view.

"Get back here!" Todd hissed. She didn't know why he was suddenly asking her to follow and stood where she was as the shaking grew more powerful still. "You're gonna get us all killed if you keep standin' there!" She still didn't budge. 

"Move away from the windows!" Kobe's voice was a cry of terror and his words were not a command, but a plea. As if her standing there would truly endanger them all like Todd was making it out to be. That plea, that request that was drowning in the sound of terror, was what made her feet begin to move once more and she quickly joined the two on the other side of the counter. 

Todd ignored her enraged outburst when he placed a hand on her head and all but shoved her down and out of sight. If she was in any way visible to the outside world, they'd be history. By this point the tremors were powerful enough that it felt like the earth beneath them would split in half and swallow them whole and that's when the hulking figure emerged from the streets.

The sunlight pouring down from the sky and onto the pavement made Nathan's deformed body even more disturbing and horrifying than it had been when it was shrouded in shadow the night before. Todd just barely poked his head more toward the right so that he could see through the glass casing of the counter and movement next to him made him know that the woman had joined him in his actions. There was a loud gasp and he all but slapped his hand over her mouth to cover what was sure to be a scream. 

He looked down to see her eyes wide open, whether in fright or in surprise he wasn't sure nor did he particularly care. The only noise was the roaring coming from the Tank outside as well as the audible pounding of his fists as he rampaged about. A poor Camero that Todd had been eyeing on the way to the gun shop met the Tank's wrath as one of it's meaty hands swatted the car into the air and, thankfully, in the opposite direction of the store that the trio currently occupied. Todd had to suppress a sigh of relief that luck seemed to shine down upon them for that split second.

Nathan's rampage continued, seeming to be without any rhyme or reason, before he suddenly stopped. Todd watched as the Tank rotated his upper torso in an attempt to look around, the motion being the only way to do so due to his head being so far embedded into the bulging muscles. It was an almost alien movement compared to the earlier rampaging. When the beast's body finally turned to where he could view into the gun store Todd nearly felt his heart stop and dread filled him as the Tank slowly but surely moved toward the building. 

Todd immediately pulled himself back behind the counter and out of view, dragging the woman with him with his hand still clamped firmly over her mouth. She didn't put up any sort of struggle, seeming to have frozen from the shock of what she had just seen and finally realizing just how dangerous shit had gotten. The grunting from the Tank was much more audible than before, letting the three of them know just how close to the doors the Tank had gotten. 

Todd nearly screamed when a 'thud' echoed through the shop, Todd guessing that the Tank had not so gently placed a fist on the glass. He sat there waiting, waiting, waiting. A sickening feeling pooled in his stomach as seconds crept by and he waited for the glass to break, the alarm to go off, and the Tank to come tearing through the shop toward them. He couldn't find it in him to move from the spot where he currently sat as he felt like these may be his last seconds of life.

Just as he was starting to lose his mind from the waiting, Todd heard the grunts quiet down and the ground shake once more from the Tank's movements. Like the night before he sat and felt those tremors slowly becoming less and less powerful before ceasing altogether due to the distance between himself and the hulking monster. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, a sigh of relief that he would live just a little longer.

Though the Tank was now gone, no one seemed inclined to speak, as if words would draw the creature's attention back toward them. Todd looked down at the woman to see her staring ahead at nothing, seemingly shell shocked. He realized his hand was still over her mouth and quickly pulled it away. It wasn't until the fear and adrenaline had finally died down that Todd realized that Kobe seemed to have hidden his face in the older man's jacket at some point during the whole ordeal, most likely when Todd had pulled himself back behind the counter and out of view. 

"Hey, we're safe. He's gone." Todd's words were no more than a whisper of reassurance to the boy and he watched as Kobe slowly withdrew himself from the jacket. "I didn't look outside. Was it... was it him?" Kobe didn't need to voice who exactly he was speaking about as Todd knew nonetheless. "Yeah, it was Nathan. Seems like he's still out running around for some reason."

"I thought he was gone." Todd wished that was the case, that Nathan had decided to fuck off and out of town, but he had a feeling that the Tank seemed to be patrolling the area like it was his own territory now. It probably was if he was the only hulking infected around. "I wish that was the case." He chanced another look at the woman who now seemed to be coming back to herself. She had abandoned her gun by her side and Todd almost took advantage of that situation. Something held him back, though, and he wasn't sure if that something would bite him in the ass later on. He really hoped it wouldn't.

"I suppose this means you were telling the truth." She admitted after a few further moments of hesitation. Todd had to hold back a hollow laugh. Of course they were telling the truth, what would they have to gain from telling crazed rumors of super infected? "If it's any consolation, they don't get much worse than that. Still doesn't mean you should underestimate the fuckers though."

The woman considered his words and nodded, still holding that thousand yard stare before turning toward him and slowly offering a hand. He stared at it like it was going to bite him. "Sorry about earlier. I don't really know who to trust anymore. Jenn." When it was obvious that this wasn't some sort of trick, Todd hesitantly grabbed her hand and shook it. "Just don't do it again, alright? Todd, by the way. Kid's name's Kobe." 

Jenn hummed in acceptance as she withdrew her hand. "Is it safe to get back up? I don't feel the ground shaking anymore, but you two are the experts on this one." Todd considered her question for a moment and tried to see if there were any remaining tremors that foretold of the Tank's existence outside or even of his return. After no further warning signs suggested that they weren't safe he gave her a nod and got to his feet. "He's gone for now, but I can't guarantee he'll be stayin' away. Seemed to be lookin' for somethin' to be honest." 

Todd once again considered the Tank's earlier movements, less chaotic and bent on destruction and aimed more toward a search that managed to temporarily break through the infected's extreme rage. It was frightening that it seemed to know that the gun store may have held something of interest which had caused it to approach the building in the first place. Todd considered himself extremely lucky that such an event hadn't also happened the previous night. 

Just as he was beginning to feel like he was understanding the infection that was running rampant, incidents like what had happened with the Smoker the previous night and now the Tank today made Todd believe he still knew absolutely nothing about this Green Flu and those that it affected.


	7. A Different Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly wanted to make a chapter like this quite some time ago, and part of it was actually meant to be the very first chapter of this story. But it was rather... cringe-worthy to be honest, and I was quite unhappy with it. I also wasn't entirely sure how to fit it into everything else. So I scrapped most of it and just kept a general, "this happened, that happened"
> 
> However, since the next step in our protagonists' journey was still a WIP for me, I figured I'd take a few ideas from my original outline, smash them together, and make this fun, angst-filled time! I am hoping to have more chapters from this particular perspective at some point since it was a fun little exercise (though it got a little repetitive after a while with using nothing but pronouns)
> 
> No dialogue in this one, for very understandable reasons, so it's quite different from my usual Todd and Kobe banter. I hope it's enjoyable though!

It was hard to believe just how extreme things had gotten in such a short amount of time. It seemed like just a few days ago that this Green Flu thing was labeled as something that had a rather low threat level with only a few severe cases here and there. Not like CEDA was letting much information slip out about what was going on anyway, though. 

There was a harsh, choking cough at the thought, a bitter resentment settling in further as the thought of, not what CEDA had done, but what it _hadn't_ done. They must have known something bad was going on, what with the number of infected individuals that they put in quarantine. It was beginning to become clear that the writing had been on the wall the entire time, people just hadn't seen it, too drawn into believing that the Civil Emergency and Defense Agency would do what was right and make sure people stayed safe.

People weren't staying safe, just intentionally being kept in the dark until it was too late. Some things had slipped through the cracks, sure. Where else had some of those 'wild, crackpot theories' come from? Another harsh cough, wracking his body and causing him to stumble before continuing to walk once more. Maybe, if CEDA hadn't been lying through their proverbial teeth, if the government had really been straight and clear about what was actually going on, he wouldn't be in this position. 

Sure, some chaos probably would have ensued, it was a bit of a given with the idea of infected people becoming borderline rabid and feral, but it would have also probably kept more civilians inside. Stopped the spread from getting as far as it had. Put a chokehold on the infection before it became so far gone and out of control. 

Now though, thanks to their stupid, ridiculous secrecy, he was left with shit depth perception, an inability to breathe properly, a cough that would make bronchitis seem like a sad, sad joke, and other problems that made him regret every choice he had made over the past couple days now. People would have stayed home. He would have listened to his mother. His stupid, dumbass friend wouldn't have...

He shook his head, ridding himself of thinking of what could have been. That sort of mentality didn't help at all anymore. It just left regrets and worthless hopes. There was no hope anymore. He couldn't find it in himself to look on the brighter side of things anymore. The closest he could come to that was he at least still had his mind rather intact, but even that was starting to look rather grim.

At first, he wanted to use his new, fucked up abilities to do some good, right some of the wrongs that had been made, and all-around keep himself from copying that bullshit that Luke had gone through and pulled. Instead, he had to watch Anabelle get chased by their monster of a father, completely unable to do anything to help. He knew, without a doubt, that one swipe of those meaty fists would leave him dead. As much as he wanted to look after her, he knew that she had gotten away at least. Kobe, on the other hand, was a different variable. The boy was missing, his condition of whether or not he was okay was completely unknown. 

It didn't take long before the boy was found again, but this time he was being chased by some random guy decked out in a biker jacket and a skull face mask. This was someone that he could do something about. So he did. The man was grabbed and dragged back, away from Kobe. But then the boy did something unexpected; he turned and cried out what was assumed to be the mans' name, and went running to help rescue this unknown person.

He had messed up. He had hurt someone that was trying to protect his little brother. He had fucked up, and did what he had sworn he wouldn't do. So he turned and ran. He was of no help. He was a monster, someone who couldn't be trusted to do anything right. And when he was called an asshole and faced with a gun, he faced the problem head-on. Better off dead than possibly causing injury to those that were actually, truly helping.

Kobe seemed to have a different opinion on the subject though, keeping the man from firing the gun and allowing him to just get away and be forgotten. Maybe he could look for Anabelle. As far as he knew there was no one around to keep her safe. Kobe seemed to be in good hands for now. 

The house where Anabelle had hidden from Nathan was easy to locate once more, and he was left wondering if Kobe was also looking for her. Maybe he could have lead the two of them to where she was, assuring them she was safe. But he wasn't sure at this point if he'd be able to make it to that destination without getting shot. So he wouldn't chance it. For now at least.

But when he got back to said house, it was surrounded by a crying, grief-filled wail. An absolutely haunting sound that promised nothing good. Still, he wasn't worried about himself. Bad shit had already happened to him, and he honestly didn't mind death at this point. But Anabelle was someone that he was worried about, concerned for her safety. He found himself opening the door to allow himself inside and heard the crying immediately get caught off by a gasp of surprise. The room was mostly dark, minus the small bit of light that the curtains didn't block out as well as an eerie red glow coming from further into the house.

At first, he was confused by the glow, unsure of what was causing it, and why the sound of breathing could barely be heard from that direction. The breathing became a low growling, a warning to stay away, as he inched closer to it. He paused when he entered the next room where the light was emanating from, causing the growling that had been growing louder to suddenly stop. The glow allowed him to see two infected that were very much dead, having been torn apart by claws, sprawled out against the far wall.

The crying had returned now. It was a softer, sadder sound this time and he turned toward the direction it was coming from. The red glow was back in his view once more and he suddenly realized that it was coming from a pair of eyes belonging to a humanoid figure. He backed away, back toward the doorway he had come from, and began to feel along the wall for some sort of light switch. His hand brushed against what he had been feeling for and he flicked the switch on, illuminating the room. 

Immediately he felt blinded by the sudden flood of brightness and he coughed out in surprise while the figure let out an enraged scream at the action. The scream was quickly cut off by a gasp of surprise as he managed to finally wrench his singular eye open to the enlightened room. The surprised gasp made more sense and he had to keep from making a similar sound. If he was even capable of doing so anymore, that is. 

She had changed. She had changed so much, after so little time, and the sobbing made so much more sense. God, if he was capable of it, he'd probably be crying himself. The two stared at each other, not sure what to do at this point. There was a whimper, though he was unsure if it was one of fear or more sadness. He allowed himself to sink to his knees so that he was at a more even viewpoint as well as attempting to seem less intimidating. Considering her claws and what she had done to the dead infected that were lying against the wall, however, she was honestly the more intimidating one at this point. 

He watched as she slowly inched her way closer, her movements calculating, and he allowed her to do so as he remained still. She slowly extended her hand toward him once she was within reaching distance, but upon seeing the claws that her fingers had become, she immediately recoiled. There was an attempt to back away, back into the corner she had been sitting in, but he stopped her by grabbing ahold of her wrist before she could get too far.

She instantly froze at the action, her eyes widening, and he began to feel like he had made a mistake, that he was going to end up like the other infected in the room. The two were tense for several moments, leaving him wondering when she would snap. Then she began to weep once more. The sound was filled with regret for what she had done, and grief for what had happened to them. And he let her cry while he continued to hold onto her, afraid that if he let go he would lose her again. 

That small amount of contact was all that either of them felt comfortable allowing. She was afraid of hurting him like she had hurt those sick people that had kept bothering her, and he just felt like he didn't have a right to, that he had failed at protecting her from this absolute hell. 

His original plan of trying to get her back to Kobe was now out the window, as he now knew that she wouldn't be safe after what had happened to her. She seemed to be of somewhat sound mind based on her reaction to him, but he didn't want to chance anything at this point. Things were already fucked up enough. They couldn't stay here for long though. Sooner or later, Kobe and that man were bound to stumble upon them, and who knew what would happen then.

With a small bit of remorse, he stood up and released her wrist, causing her to gasp in surprise at the lack of contact and quickly struggle to her feet to follow. More coughs wracked his body as he turned away, his blind side facing her and missing the expression that crossed her face at the horrible sound. Once the fit was over and he regained control of his breathing (or at least, as much control as he was able to at this point), he took in more of the room and saw a door that lead out the back. 

He nodded toward it, silently giving the idea of leaving, and he watched as she followed his line of sight to see what he was motioning toward. There was some hesitation on her part as if she wasn't wanting to depart from this safe location. He couldn't really blame her, considering this house is what allowed her to escape from their father after his monstrous transformation. He coughed again when he attempted to tell her that they needed to go. It was rather unsurprising at this point that words were failing him, considering the condition he was in. She seemed to understand though and gave a slow, reluctant nod. 

He was satisfied with this and turned out the light, which left them in the dark once more, minus her glowing red eyes. It would have been a little disconcerting if he didn't know who she was at this point. He honestly didn't know where they would go at this point, if there even was any safe haven for them anymore, but he knew that they had to move on nonetheless. And move on they did.

**Author's Note:**

> [Amazing art of the Mal, Anabelle, and Kobe picture referenced in Suriving that my best friend Chibi-Pix made!](https://chibi-pix.tumblr.com/post/615205404917596160/ladies-gentlemen-and-anyone-anywhere-in-between)


End file.
